This summer BaseballCloud has the privilege to work with a few very talented R&D interns that will focus on different fields in baseball analytics and player development. We look forward to working with this group of young men as they look to further their careers in baseball, as well as help grow the BaseballCloud brand.
First up, we introduce Johnny Asel (Twitter: @JohnnyAsel)
Johnny played high school baseball but did not pursue a college playing career, instead, Johnny found a love for the numbers around the game. After researching advanced sabermetrics, he began to develop his own studies in high school and continued this research into college. He made his first presentation at a SABR Day conference in 2019 and began to write for his high school paper. During his freshman year at Syracuse, Johnny started to post his videos on Twitter and Youtube to help sharpen his video editing skills.
Johnny's first interest in baseball metrics revolved around MLB award voting and WAR, but since then his interests have shifted to everything about pitching. This includes the physics of the ball's flight, utilizing pitch arsenals and pitch mixes, and now wants to dig deeper into the biomechanics of the throwing motion. This summer he is hoping to continue his studies of pitching metrics by utilizing the BaseballCloud platform and database to contribute to the BCBlog and provide the audience with more insight into his findings. Johnny will also be posting videos on his Twitter account using the recently released BallR and PitchR modules on the BaseballCloud platform.
Sam Bornstein (Twitter: @Sam_Bornstein)
Sam is from Wheaton, Illinois and just graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor's degree in Business Analytics this month. He worked with Iowa's baseball program as a student manager and during his senior year he was the Lead Data Analyst. In this role, he directed the analytics, technology, and group of analysts under him to provide useful tools to the coaching staff. Sam recently created a web application called "HawkDashboard" that generates reports, player profiles and houses all of Iowa Baseball's data. With BaseballCloud, Sam is looking forward to researching new ways to benefit college baseball and allow teams to effectively intertwine analytics and player development.
Ryan Holland
Ryan played two seasons of JUCO baseball in Mississippi before transferring to Ole Miss to continue his academic career. At Ole Miss, Ryan studied Mathematics and worked under Chris Goudoras as a student manager with the Ole Miss baseball team. Ryan now attends LSU and is in their Applied Statistics Master's program and works under Jamie Tutko with the LSU baseball team.
Ryan is interested in researching possible defensive metrics for catchers because he feels the position needs a formal way to display its value in a more concrete way. He is also interested in doing some research on pitching biomechanics and the effectiveness of different types of arm care/ throwing programs.
Chad Raines (Twitter: @chad_rain)
Chad is a 2020 graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While in school at UNC, he double majored in Economics and Exercise Sport Science with a concentration in Sports Administration. For the past two seasons, he worked with the UNC baseball program as a member of their analytics department, where he was promoted to the Assistant Director of Baseball Analytics position during the fall of 2019. In this role, he was the head of the advanced scouting department while also working in player development through the use of data and tech. This position laid the groundwork for his passion to work in baseball and learn more about baseball analytics.
Chad's main interest is in player development and how teams can use various technologies and ideologies to create more valuable players. He has been compiling research questions in the notes section of his phone for over a year, and the resources that BaseballCloud provides should be a massive benefit in addressing many of these questions. Specifically, he is interested in pitch design, learning more about biomechanics, and applying quantifiable metrics to areas of baseball where it previously relied on the eye test. We are very excited to have Chad this summer and help him continue his research in baseball player development.
Paul Sirena (Twitter: @Paul_Sirena98)
Paul just graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Statistics and a minor in Mathematics from the University of Iowa. He has always loved tracking player statistics, which motivated Paul to major in Statistics and apply to be a student manager for the Iowa baseball program during his senior year. This coming fall, Paul with begin pursuing a Master's degree in Business Analytics.
Paul is interested in modeling different variables and creating visualizations, and is excited to work with all of the data that will be available with BaseballCloud. Finding a way to combine statistical models and visualizations are projects that Paul is excited to complete during his internship this summer.
Blake Swanson
Blake recently graduated from Rollins College with a degree in Computer Science, along with minors in Mathematics and Business Management. He was a member of the Rollins baseball team for the past four years and will be using his last two years of eligibility while attending the Crummer Graduate School of Business and pursuing an MBA.
He is looking forward to bringing what he has learned in the classroom to the real world, and how the use of data and simulation software can allow baseball players and coaches to learn more about the game. Throughout this summer, he will be assisting with new software features on BaseballCloud, specifically, he will be using Unity to help develop 3D visuals for pitching and hitting from data collected from ball tracking technology. He is excited to learn more about the connection between software development and baseball analytics.